I’d be content with being allowed to get a booster if one wants one based upon data from other countries, the company’s trials/tests, and anecdotal data the medical people in my life are relaying. I’d rather not wait to see how long immunity lasts when the writing appears to be on the wall and a Delta dragon is lurking.
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There are masks everywhere I’ve been - Staples, CVS, Walgreens…
Yes This!! Seems like they’re always a few steps behind. And if we could test millions of people before the vaccine we should be able to continue testing a good percentage of them. There’s a lot of money flowing out of DC these days.
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I really thought the “new data” Walensky cited would come out today. But there is no pre-print of a study and no further info.
It’s not science if it’s secret. It has to be out in the open, peer-reviewed, replicated and scrutinized. If all they have is PCR test results, that isn’t enough to reach the conclusion that vaccinated people can be as infectious as unvaccinated. Delta variant causes very high levels of virus in the nose. What if the immune systems of vaccinated people inactivate all that virus, and the result is a lot of “dead” viral particles and fragments for PCR to find. A low CT value may just be picking up lots of viral RNA, but no infectious virus.
I want to give our public health experts the benefit of the doubt, but why wouldn’t they show their evidence? Maybe the CDC director needs to be a science PhD. Frustrated but glad to have a forum here to grapple with the information (or lack thereof).
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Besides an MD, Walensky has a MPH, so she has to have taken Biostatistics…even Biostat 1 would teach to show your work…
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Resources are always a problem, yes I get that. But to wholesale dismiss gathering information on the mild breakthrough cases in vaccinated people is to put on blinders. The most recent guidance appears to be based on 100 samples from vaccinated and unvaccinated people with Covid infections (I don’t know if those are only hospitalized patients but assume so since they stopped following up on mild cases). I will be keeping an eye out for the published data. Here’s the article referring to data coming from 100 samples:
Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster shot at this time. FDA, CDC, and NIH are engaged in a science-based, rigorous process to consider whether or when a booster might be necessary. This process takes into account laboratory data, clinical trial data, and cohort data – which can include data from specific pharmaceutical companies, but does not rely on those data exclusively. We continue to review any new data as it becomes available and will keep the public informed. We are prepared for booster doses if and when the science demonstrates that they are needed.
See this part, the very first sentence, is what I’m talking about. To me that’s an unforced error. They could’ve just said that they are in the process of evaluating all the data and if they find that a booster is needed then they will make that recommendation (which is basically what they said after the first sentence). The key words people will remember is “do not need a booster shot” and forget about the “at this time” part. How long will it be before the CDC recommends boosters? A month? two months? after saying booster shots were unnecessary? It will be seen as the CDC changing its guidance again. Yes, it will be due to following the changes in the pandemic as it goes on. But I think what people will remember is that the CDC said they “do not need a booster shot.”
Nuances work fine for a lot of people, but I hesitate to say it works for most.
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And apparently some people are already doing that, as I’ve read on CC. Dr. Walensky lost a lot of credibility with her big blunder back in May. How could she not have known that not just the vaccinated would start unmasking?
I trust Pfizer and I trust Israel’s data. Pfizer and Moderna have been stars throughout this pandemic with their development of the mRNA vaccines. The writing is on the wall. Will the CDC still be hesitant to not recommend boosters because they fear it hurts the push for vaccinations for the vaccine refusers? I read the national plan to encourage vaccinations is falling flat.
I am one of the ones whose immunity must be waning (2nd dose in Feb), and I resent that the CDC doesn’t care about people like me as long as I don’t get hospitalized or die. My big concern is if breakthrough cases can get long covid. I have read of breakthrough cases where that happened. And it’s not just a selfish concern. Does the U.S. not care if there is an epidemic of long covid?
@AgeofAquarius “But I think what people will remember is that the CDC said they “do not need a booster shot.'”
Yes! And wasn’t it the CDC that said people didn’t need masks back at the beginning of the pandemic, even though that wasn’t true? So with that, Walensky’s big blunder in mid-May, and now their statement that people do not need boosters, it’s kind of like 3 strikes and they are out in regards to the nation’s confidence in them.
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I trust data coming from Israel as well and they started boosters for elderly already. My 86 years old mother got vaccinated in January and was enjoying back to new normal life even since. I recommended her to scale down yesterday since accounting to information from Israel she probably needs a booster by now. I don’t know how people get boosters here if it was not approved yet. For myself, I am in mid-fifties, I would probably wait before making the decision about boosters since vaccine still prevents serious cases which to me it’s the point of vaccination.
Regarding the Israel data on breakthrough infections in the earliest vaccinated group…
The common interpretation is that the vaccine-derived immunity is wearing off. But there is a confounding effect: the earliest vaccinated group apparently included health care workers (higher exposure than most people). If Israel also prioritized people with medical vulnerabilities, than that adds to the increased likelihood of breakthrough infections in the earliest vaccinated group, even if the vaccine-derived immunity did not wear off. That B.1.617.2 / Delta produces higher viral loads and is more contagious may have made such differences much larger and more obvious than with previous variants.
Here in the US, the earliest vaccinated groups were health care workers, followed by older people and/or those with pre-existing conditions that were believed to make them more medically vulnerable. A higher rate of breakthrough infection is to be expected in these groups. Fading immunity could be an issue, but it is not obvious whether this is the case merely from higher rates of breakthrough infection in the earliest vaccinated groups.
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This is the stuff I find terrifying. What will it mean to have a large part of the population suffering cognitive losses long term? https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S2589-5370(21)00324-2
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Yes, this is frightening.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/29/health/covid-cognitive-decline-alzheimers/index.html
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Curious about recommendations about how to proceed if you do get breakthrough Covid. I saw 10 days after diagnosis or 48(?) hours no fever w/o medicine. But that may be regular guidance, although don’t know why they wouldn’t be the same. So what if you have so mild a case you don’t run fever? How long are you contagious?
D getting married in 6 weeks so starting to obsess about how we would handle a breakthrough case close to the day. Didn’t know if there was any newer guidance for infected people based on vaccination.
Why would someone who didn’t even have a fever get tested in the first place? Wouldn’t you just assume it was a cold unless it started to get worse, or unless you know you were exposed?
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If you read the whole story and not just the headline then you’ll understand that all of this is very preliminary and no link between Covid and Alzheimer’s. I’m tired of headlines being so sensationalized.
If you read the headline carefully, you would see that it says “cognitive decline” and “Alzheimer’s-like.” Not Alzheimer’s. While there are many misleading headlines, this one is not one of them. BTW, there is one CC poster who has seen this in her parent, and we are also dealing with rapid acceleration of cognitive decline in our parent immediately post covid. Of course, these are just anecdotes, but oxygen deprivation is never good for the brain.
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Agreed. And medical lad has said they are seeing it a lot where he is. He’s currently just an intern (first year resident), but his specialty is neurology so a lot of what he does is involved with that.
This is the key I think.
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Not sure about recommendations, but the following study tracking first responders early in the year found that breakthrough infections resulted in lower viral loads and less time where the virus was detectable. Breakthrough infections were also much less common than infections in unvaccinated people.
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https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072
Among 1497 fully vaccinated health care workers for whom RT-PCR data were available, 39 SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections were documented. Neutralizing antibody titers in case patients during the peri-infection period were lower than those in matched uninfected controls (case-to-control ratio, 0.361; 95% confidence interval, 0.165 to 0.787). Higher peri-infection neutralizing antibody titers were associated with lower infectivity (higher Ct values). Most breakthrough cases were mild or asymptomatic, although 19% had persistent symptoms (>6 weeks). The B.1.1.7 (alpha) variant was found in 85% of samples tested. A total of 74% of case patients had a high viral load (Ct value, <30) at some point during their infection; however, of these patients, only 17 (59%) had a positive result on concurrent Ag-RDT. No secondary infections were documented.
CONCLUSIONS
Among fully vaccinated health care workers, the occurrence of breakthrough infections with SARS-CoV-2 was correlated with neutralizing antibody titers during the peri-infection period. Most breakthrough infections were mild or asymptomatic, although persistent symptoms did occur.
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My daughter a nurse who had to spend substantial time about 2 weeks ago delousing an unvaccinated COVID patient ( 2 separate issues obviously) now has a breakthrough infection. Very mild cold like symptoms for the last 5 days which have been improving daily. As she put it it ranks a 1 out of 10 (on a list of “ mild to bad colds” (10 being the worst) she’s ever had.
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